Screaming Ever Louder

Six years ago, comedian Ricky Gervais hosted his fifth and final Golden Globes award ceremony. In his opening monologue, he gave some helpful advice to the nominees regarding their acceptance speeches.

If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech, right? You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world.

When I got into the commercial real estate game, my (very seasoned) attorney warned me against having doctors as tenants. In his experience, and speaking in general, they tend to overestimate their abilities as business people based on their success in surviving the rigors of a medical education. This cognitive bias, dubbed The Halo Effect, is not limited to doctors, though it is sufficiently notable among the members of that profession that con artists like to target them (”I am too smart to be taken in by a confidence scheme”). For an interesting dive into that world, check out David Mamet’s movie House of Games.

The Halo Effect is similar to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, a cognitive bias where people of low ability/skill/knowledge in a certain area tend to overestimate their expertise in that area, but the Halo Effect can be characterized as a “spillover” into other areas.

The early part of the year is awards season in the entertainment industry. From January to June, we are offered the Critics Choice Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, the Grammy Awards, the Film Independent Spirit Awards, the BAFTA Awards, the SAG Awards, the Oscars, the Tonies, and the BET Awards. We just cleared the Grammys, and sure as the sun rises, some winners ignored Gervais’s advice voiced political opinions during their acceptance speeches. I am sure as the sun rises that the remaining shows will offer us some more instances of entertainers scolding the world for not behaving as they think best.

That these pontifications increasingly produce backlash - not only does nobody care, but people are more and more likely to be contrarians - seems of little concern to the pontificators.

Particularly in entertainment, Thomas Sowell’s observation that such people speak and act and endorse as they do for ego gratification and self-congratulation above all else rings true. Entertainment is a world that can crush egos, and any anodyne to that hard reality is certain to attract the sorts who crave fame and recognition. The flip side of that, the massive ego boost that award-level success provides will engender Halo Effects in all but the most grounded people.

So, despite the “nobody cares” reactions, despite Gervais telling them an obvious truth, and despite the negative effects of celebrity political preaching (2024’s Presidential election was influenced by a major backlash against the parade of Hollywood millionaires endorsing Harris), the celebrity opinion vocalizing persists.

Ditto for other Best-and-Brightest types.

Worse, the apathy of the unwashed masses to the wisdom the “elites” (as Thomas Sowell dubbed them) only emboldens them. They get louder and more absolute in dispensing unsolicited advice from platforms not intended for such dispensing. People watch award shows for the glitz and glamor, and to root for their favorite performers. No one’s saying “I hope to hear what Billie Eilish thinks of the migrant matter if she wins an award,” barring those who already know what she thinks, already agree with her mind-numbingly simplistic (and self-contradictory) sound-bite, and are so self-absorbed that they think her sage words on the matter will sway the ignorant.

In addition to the increasing loudness, we have the demanders. Consider the controversy about Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle denim commercial, and the demand from GQ’s Katherine Stoeffel that she apologize or denounce the ad’s implication (in the minds of the perpetually aggrieved offense hunters) of genetic superiority. Sweeney not only refused to bend the knee, she threw such brilliant shade at Stoeffel that a meme template was born.

Now, the demanders are trying to tar Sweeney as a right wing apparatchik for being unwilling to speak as they require. Again, to her credit, Sweeney isn’t capitulating. Instead, she’s leveraging her moment by launching a lingerie line while reiterating that she is an entertainer rather than a political pundit.

Good for Sweeney.

And good for all those who refused to fall for the synthetic outrage over her jeans ad.

The increasing loudness of the sky-screamers is a sign that they feel they’re losing ground. But, make no mistake, they’re not going away. Like the sea to a sailor, they are forever a danger.